NEWS RELEASE
Thomas Suehs
Executive Commissioner
Date: Feb. 28, 2011
Contact: Stephanie Goodman (512) 424-6951
State Honors Seton for Reducing Trauma Births
AUSTIN – The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) has honored Seton Family of Hospitals with its first Quality Award for reducing the number of injuries to newborns during childbirth.
Seton became a national leader in reducing birth trauma rate with an initiative that limited the use of forceps, vacuum deliveries and elective inductions before 39 weeks of gestation.
“We’re proud to recognize Seton for this accomplishment because it shows how good medicine is also good public policy,” said Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Thomas Suehs. “This initiative leads to healthier babies, and it also saves money for taxpayers by reducing the number of Medicaid births with complications.”
Seton’s perinatal team used crisis simulation training and simple human interventions to reduce trauma rates from three per 1,000 live births in 2003 to 0.2 per 1,000 live births in 2007. Seton has continued to maintain that low rate of trauma births.
"The Seton Family of Hospitals has been a national leader in perinatal safety, and we are very grateful to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission for selecting Seton to receive the state’s first Quality Award,” said Charles J. Barnett, president/CEO of the Seton Family of Hospitals. “Both elected officials and clinicians recognize that a safer clinical environment is a crucial element in delivering not only more effective health care, but also lower-cost health care."
HHSC presented Seton with the Quality Award this week. The award was created as a way to recognize innovations in health care that improve patient care and make more efficient use of Medicaid funding.
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